


play the game

by naimeria



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Multi, OT3, Power Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 13:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3490334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naimeria/pseuds/naimeria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can’t say he’s ungrateful for what they’ve been given – seeing Carl in a bed, Judith in a sterile room, his family folding laundry, drinking water from a faucet, cooking food on a stove - it’s all incomparable.</p><p>But.</p><p>(Rick's perception of Alexandria, and how they're going to survive and adapt.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	play the game

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't primarily a relationship piece, more like a "I love these three in the same air space" piece.

 

The luxury of time feels too foreign. There’s no more pressure, no need to run and hide and kill or be killed. It void of it leaves Rick feeling strangely empty and displaced, like a puzzle piece being forced into the wrong spot. The buzz beneath his skin turns to an itch, so he crosses the border when he can, leaving the illusioned suburbia for more familiar territory. Killing walkers is the familiar, while the white walls and plush pillows whisper of secrets.

Rick can’t say he’s wholly ungrateful for what they’ve been given – seeing Carl in a bed, Judith in a sterile room, his family folding laundry, drinking water from a faucet, cooking food on a stove - it’s all incomparable.

As with Woodbury and Terminus, there’s always more. He’s going to find it, and he’s going to tear down the curtain, wipe the façade away from all those smiling faces and freshly painted houses. Those not with him (with  _them_ ) will leave, and his family will rebuild, will be safe.

Rick’s leaning over the railing, staring out at an actual  _yard_ for Christ’s sake. Why do they care about the lawn care, about the peeling paint, about bingo night?

Normalcy, Deanna tells him. Society, Jesse says. Comfort, Aaron assures.

Ignorance, Daryl growls. He’s like to side with his man, all things considered.

It’s their words that set his teeth on edge. It’s not the fresh linen or the showers, those are things he’d never thought he’d see, things he’s grateful for all over again. It’s the small gestures, the silent plea for ignorance, the front so carefully stitched together that the seams are too tight, too close, too visible. Rick sees them, just as the rest of his people do. They know a falsehood, can smell it like a dog smells the worst in people. 

“Feels vulnerable here,” Daryl says around a cigarette, sitting on the floor, small as he can go. Rick breaks away from the illusion and really looks at him, thinks of the 15 foot tall walls, of the ammunition, of the solar powered rooms they’re sharing now, and finds he agrees. Not to Daryl’s extent, Rick knows he’ll never be on that level – he knew a more solid society before all this, didn’t have Daryl’s wild-born nature for trees and the dirt between his toes. Rick grew up in a house like this, with neighbors like these, in a community made of picket fences and homeowner’s meetings. This is new for Daryl in ways that it’s not for Rick. Doesn’t mean Rick disagrees with him.

“We’ve got four walls and a roof,” Rick says. “Couldn’t say that a week ago.”

“Yeah,” Daryl says, eventually.

Rick rakes a hand over his stubby cheeks, knowing he should shave again. Alexandria wants a clean-cut cop, that’s what they’ll get. Shove it down their throats till they choke. “You know what this is,” Rick says.

“Do I?” Daryl asks, grinding the butt of the cig into the white deck. It leaves a smear, and Rick stares at it with a weird twist of satisfaction.

“This is a test,” Rick says, speaking low. “We’ll get through this one, just like we always do.”

“Yeah,” Daryl says again, looking slightly more assured. “I know what this is. You and Carol settin’ it up good. Clean up even better,” he says. Daryl’s staring down at his boots now. “Just dunno if I can be that guy.”

“For now, you don’t have to,” Rick says, lowering himself to the patio next to him, arms and thighs flush. “You do what feels right, and we’ll handle the rest.”

“I don’t wanna mess it up,” Daryl says to the wood floor.

Footsteps hit the deck, and both men look up. “You won’t,” Carol says, walking over to them both, wearing that god awful cardigan and looking every bit the part. Rick regrets ever sending her away, regrets ever thinking her a fool. He regrets a lot of things. “It’s like Rick said,” she adds, joining them on the ground, “we’ll handle the up close stuff.”

“You don’t have to take care of me,” Daryl says, pride flaring up and causing his words to have a rough lilt. He looks annoyed, and Carol sets a hand on his knee, pacifying.

“That’s not what’s happening here,” Rick says, joining her efforts. It’s gratifying, knowing they are the only two that can talk to Daryl this way without setting off any alarms. “We’re happy to do our part.”  _Play the part,_ he can’t say, for fear of outside listeners.

“You’ll find your part to play soon,” Carol says, removing her hand. She looks beautiful, clean and combed and face unmarred by Ed’s cruel hand. This is who she is, what she could never have been before. Daryl, too, he realizes, thinking back on his emotional bruises, in tandem with Carol’s visible ones. These two are the only ones to see the world and come out the other side a truly better person. He finds he loves them with everything he is.

“We’re good people,” Rick says, voice thick, because he wants them to know how highly they’re regarded, how irreplaceable they are to him. “Survivors.”

“We have the chance to be more than just survivors, here,” Carol says, voice soft but fire hot in her conviction.

There’s ample pause, but Daryl nods once, no longer staring at the ground, but at her. “And what if it doesn’t work out?” Daryl asks, glancing from her to Rick, voicing the one thought that’s been echoing through their family since they laid eyes on those gates.

“Then we adapt, like we always have,” Rick says.

There’s quiet, then, not uncomfortable or intrusive. Carol breaks it by leaning across Daryl and sliding thin fingers over Rick’s tie. “Been a while, huh, Sheriff?”

He lets her straighten it without complaint, ignoring Daryl’s snort but taking pleasure in the warmth of his arm against his, in her feather-light fingers as they graze his chest. He wants to embrace them here, hold them close and never let go, but they need to keep a level head. Public emotion can be weakness in front of the wrong people, and Rick will not put their lives at risk like that. 

It’s another piece of the puzzle, another layer to the mask they have to wear, and Rick wants it to be perfect. Play the part, come out on top. It’s easy rules, and they’re going to follow them, going to come out on top.

They always do.

 


End file.
